Talk:Public opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gillian Bennett, Alexlavin99.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled comments
This text was originally located at Support and opposition for the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. A complete history for the text may be found there. - Montr&eacute;alais 05:03 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

This needs to be fleshed out and wikified. Use full names, not just "Saddam". -- Zoe

Right now, I'm just cutting and pasting from the full Support and Opposition article. I could use some help polishing each resulting segment. - Montr&eacute;alais

--

Is an encyclopedia really the right place for what thematically is a recording of an op-ed article ? Also, shouldn't such articles be added in retrospect if at all ?

Ideally, this piece should be a part of "American history in early 21st century" or "Iraq War : 2003"(should it occur). -- Gyan


 * Thank you, Gyan. I've been fighting this battle for a while now.  -- Zoe

I renamed the article from "war on" Iraq to "invasion of" Iraq for two reasons:
 * 1) The article is completely about the decision to invade or not -- I saw nothing about reactions to the progress of the war itself or the occupation afterwards, let alone the current Iraqi government's campaign against the insurgents
 * 2) The phrase "war on" promotes the POV that the purpose (or effect) of the war was against the legitimate interests of the Iraqi people -- a position which is not a fact but a point of view still hotly disputed. "Invasion of" carries no such connotation. It's strictly neutral, raising no questions of purpose or legitimacy. --Uncle Ed 19:10, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Iraqi opinion?
Sort of covered in other articles, but why not have Iraqi popular opinion of invasion of Iraq? The rest of the world's opinion seems adequately covered in other articles.

Apparently people don't even think this article is valid. I know I'd like a clear, NPOV account of how Iraqis feel about being "liberated", though. Iraqi resistance has some info. - Omegatron 21:01, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Military Opinion ?
Is there an article which deals with the US military opinon, or is there an intentions to address the question in this one ? I think that with Anthony Zinni, Karen_Kwiatkowski, the recent stories about Rumsfled and humvees, there is something to talk about... Cheers ! Rama 11:05, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Leaves in Autumn
The following quote is taken out of context: On the 16th of June 2005, Foxnews editorialist John Gibson aknowledged that " Bush's support for the war is falling off like leaves in autumn".

If you read the article, Gibson is stating not that popular support for Bush's war is falling, but that Bush's support for the war is falling. While it may be true that fewer and fewer Americans support the war, Gibson did not make that point in that editorial. He was lamenting President Bush's failure to more strenuously defend the rightness of the war.

--Henrybaker 21:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * What makes you think this ? I agree that it could be understood like this (and I admit that I never though of this interpretation), but before this, you have "People want to know you've thought long and hard before ordering men and women to war. They want to know you have good reasons and that the reasons stand up to vigorous attack.", and right after, you have "[Bush] should be able to convince people that this was a war worth fighting and it's a war worth winning. The latter is harder than the first. It's hard to hang in long enough to actually win. But it is worth it."; to me, this clearly points to the picture of a resolute but misunderstood president, and less and less wanting population. Rama 21:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Rama, nowhere in the article, before or after the statement in question, does Gibson talk about US popular support for the war. The quote is at best ambiguous, more likely taken out of context. This is not professional behaviour for an encyclopedia or any intellectual excercise. --Henrybaker 00:35, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * What about "People want to know you've thought long and hard before ordering men and women to war" ? Rama 07:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Henrybaker, if you yourself admit the "quote is at best ambiguous," then you can only accuse Rama of being unprofessional if you assume bad faith, which is the opposite of Wikipedia's foremost commandment. Further, you're pushing a novel interpretation, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  FireWeed 19:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

"But Bush's support for the war is falling off like leaves in autumn. And that shouldn't be. He should be able to articulate the reasons we're there without sounding like a broken record. He should be able to say why we'll stay a certain length of time — long enough for them to get ready to protect themselves — and then if they seem like they will fail forever, we'll probably have to go, and say, "Hey, we gave it a good shot." "

Do you really think the line that you quoted is about Public Opinion? It is clearly not. Rama, it is unprofessional, at any level of academia, to take a quote out of context like that. --Henrybaker 16:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I am really sorry, but I still understand this as the popular opinion toward Bush's war, and "He should be able to articulate ..." as what Bush should do to win back this popular support. I understand that two interpretations of the sentence can be made, but I fail to see what is decisively better with yours. Rama 20:40, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that in the light of this further article, with things like "you may have noticed the American people seem to have lost their ardor for the war", it is safe to think that my interpretation was correct. I am restoring the part. Rama 16:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

"Popular Opinion"?
There is no "popular opinion" on the Invasion of Iraq, and I doubt there ever will be. Until someone can show other than a few media polls, I can't find the notability of this article, other than it trying to push a political view. Putting up for DR. --Mrmiscellanious 01:21, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * "There is no "popular opinion" on the Invasion of Iraq" ??? I though that the USA were a free country were people were free to have any opinion they wanted ? What are you trying to say with this enormously shocking statement ? Rama 06:56, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * That's the point I'm making. There can be no one "popular opinion", which makes me think from reading it that it is pushing one.  --Mrmiscellanious 02:39, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The popular opinion regarding this Invasion is many, varied, changing, yet it exists. If you are dissatisfied with this artcile, you are welcome to suggest it be renamed to a plural and work on its content, but suggesting its deletion does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Rama 05:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The article desperately need to spell out wherefrom it gets it seemingly near divine insight into the American mind. Especially the intro where it’s forwarded without a scrap of evidence that popular opinion is this and that and what not. That all it is in fact are some random more or less (and more less than more) trustworthy and biased polls and no general voting has ever been made, except for the presidential election in 2005. Rune X2 17:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This why I think this article is desering of a

POV-check
 * tag. 70.106.36.134 00:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Quality
The article is of a very low quality. Filled with unsubstantiated and uncited polls and many vague (and in the context quite useless) snippets like "some polls", "other polls showed", "most polls showed", "a consistent pattern", etc. The uncited polls should be removed and the vague, the "hearsay" tone of "some" and "most" cleaned up.


 * This article is really unworthy of Wikipedia. I am surprised that the originator hasn't done more to "wikify" the entries.207.200.116.8 20:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. These weasel words make me cringe. 70.106.36.134 00:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Although this article strikes me as fairly accurate in the way it describes "the public mood" as an American can understand it from watching and reading the American media, it's still unencyclopedic. In what's essentially a timeline of poll results, there are four references.  It seems like half the results in this article don't mention which poll they're from!


 * I realize weasel words are perfectly acceptable on Fox News ( "some people think ..." ), but not in an encyclopedia.


 * FireWeed 19:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The article may not be “encyclopedic” but it is a valuable resource if someone is interested in a centralized collection of opinion polls concerning the American public’s support of the Invasion. Granted, in order to serve this function the article requires a massive overhaul.  I have a few proposals that I will begin working on unless there is contention:
 * Remove all uncited claims
 * Remove all polls not directly portraying the opinion towards the invasion. This page was born from the “Support and Opposition of the U.S. Plan to Invade” article, and should continue to provide information under that topic.  We can find another home for the opinion polls concerning the President, the surge, etc.
 * Separate the issues from the timeline. i.e. the discussion of President Bush’s speech is useful but clutters the timeline section and might be better placed under a general section entitled “Influencing Factors”
 * Nishspeak 06:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That sounds good to me.  Thanks. --Orcasgirl 19:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I updated the intro to contain polls through May of 2007 using the Associated Press-Ipsos and a CNN poll in order to maintain a neutral point of view --Orcasgirl 23:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

False Public Perception
According to a Harris Poll released July 21 found that 50% of U.S. respondents said they believe Iraq had the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. This was reported in numerous news articles, such as The State (http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15215272.htm) and The Washington Post (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2006/08/do_you_believe_in_wmd.html). PJ 06:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to rename article
It seems like this article should be retitled American public opinion of Iraq war. Public would replace popular, as I think "public opinion poll" is a far more common usage than "popular opinion poll". Popular has several other connotations (as in populist, or something that people generally favor) that I don't think are intended here. Iraq war would replace invasion of Iraq, since the polls in this article cover the entire war, both invasion and occupation. I think there is a fairly consistent split on the Iraq war articles between those two phases of the war, with the title "Iraq war" encompassing both pieces. Does anyone object to my retitling the article? Thanks. --Mackabean 00:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not have a problem with replacing the term public for popular though. Orcasgirl 21:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

(which we could link to, of course). Nishspeak 04:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I Agree renaming the article to American public opinion of Iraq war is a good idea because popular seams like the social latter idea --Jeffrd10 (talk) 13:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Deleted sentence
I deleted this sentence- They did this without thinking about the consequences the war might have on Iraq's Christian communities (Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean), let alone of course, every other community- due to flagrant bias and it being an unverifiable claim. 81.90.21.125 00:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a bar graph
A graph aggregating the various polls showing change over time would be fantastic here! --Ephilei 01:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad link
This source contains no poll from 2003: An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken after the beginning of the war showed a 62% support for the war, lower than the 79% in favor at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War.[2]

More recent data?
The article basically ends almost a decade ago. I found a bit of newer data here: http://www.people-press.org/2014/01/30/more-now-see-failure-than-success-in-iraq-afghanistan/#more-say-u-s-has-failed-than-succeeded-in-achieving-iraq-goals Should it be added? Too busy to do it myself. HCA (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I think more recent data should be added for the 10 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In 2013-2014, President Obama fulfilled his promise of pulling US troops out of the area. Based on this decision, I found a source from the Pew Research center that polled citizens asking if they felt the war was a success. The poll showed an all time low (52%) that the invasion was not successful and failed to achieve the goals the US set out to accomplish. This attitude could be a direct result from an authoritative government rising up and the early beginnings of ISIS.

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/more-americans-say-us-failed-to-achieve-its-goals-in-iraq/ Kfill (talk) 18:49, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review Article
The Structure of the Article is pretty good as the headings are clear and show what is in each section. The exception to this is the heading "The Change" which is too broad and confusing. Something like The flip in Opinion on the war or something like that I feel would be better. In the lead section the last few sentences which show polling data is that should probably be in the body of the article.

Some of the Polling data seems to be misrepresented in the article. For example in the January 2003 section the UN poll that is referred to as showing that "Approximately two-thirds of respondents wanted the government to wait for the UN inspections to end" is incorrect. The Poll actually say that nearly 2 thirds (63%) support diplomatic solutions now instead of military ones, not that they want are just wanting to see the U.N. report and then decide. While small, it is still inaccurate and should be fixed.

Some of the sources seem to be too old or broken links, some even use the wayback machine to access pages and information. These sources need to be updated but it might be difficult to find old news articles that aren't behind pay walls or on databases. There are also several places needing citations but many already have the need citation subscript but not all.

The good news it seems that everyone of the talk page is realistic about the articles problems and are working to make positive changes. I agree that adding a graph showing the change overtime could be very useful and enhance the article heavily as most users don't read a fully article and often only read lead sections and look at photos as they scroll throw. It would be a great, quick and easy way to dispense the information. I trust the article will be better soon and good luck! Sean Ruddy (talk) 17:35, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Gallup Source does not support this statement, unless I am missing something
"In March 1992, 55% of Americans said they would support sending American troops back to the Persian Gulf to remove Saddam Hussein from power" the referenced archived source does not seem to contain anything to support this sentence

Aisleway (talk) 04:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Can this include support for war by demographic and state residency factors?
Is it only for the United States as a whole or anything within the United States Hikeddeck (talk) 03:55, 28 November 2022 (UTC)